Roy Clifton Strickland (September 20, 1942 â September 22, 2010) was a businessman in The Woodlands, Texas, north of Houston, who was a pioneer in the development of the Republican Party in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Strickland challenged the Democrat Gillis William Long, a part of the Long political dynasty, for the United States House of Representatives in 1972. More than a decade later, he ran unsuccessfully for local office as a write-in candidate in Texas.